The following Australian provisional patent applications are hereby incorporated by cross-reference. For the purposes of location and identification, U.S. patent applications identified by their U.S. patent application serial numbers (USSN) are listed alongside the Australian applications from which the U.S. patent applications claim the right of priority.
Not applicable.
The present invention relates to ink jet printing and in particular discloses a thermal elastic rotary impeller ink jet printer.
The present invention further relates to the field of drop on demand ink jet printing.
Many different types of printing have been invented, a large number of which are presently in use. The known forms of print have a variety of methods for marking the print media with a relevant marking media. Commonly used forms of printing include offset printing, laser printing and copying devices, dot matrix type impact printers, thermal paper printers, film recorders, thermal wax printers, dye sublimation printers and ink jet printers both of the drop on demand and continuous flow type. Each type of printer has its own advantages and problems when considering cost, speed, quality, reliability, simplicity of construction and operation etc.
In recent years, the field of ink jet printing, wherein each individual pixel of ink is derived from one or more ink nozzles has become increasingly popular primarily due to its inexpensive and versatile nature.
Many different techniques of ink jet printing have been invented. For a survey of the field, reference is made to an article by J Moore, xe2x80x9cNon-Impact Printing: Introduction and Historical Perspectivexe2x80x9d, Output Hard Copy Devices, Editors R Dubeck and S Sherr, pages 207 to 220 (1988).
Ink Jet printers themselves come in many different types. The utilization of a continuous stream of ink in ink jet printing appears to date back to at least 1929 wherein U.S. Pat. No. 1,941,001 by Hansell discloses a simple form of continuous stream electrostatic ink jet printing.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,596,275 by Sweet also discloses a process of continuous ink jet printing including the step wherein the ink jet stream is modulated by a high frequency electrostatic field so as to cause drop separation. This technique is still utilized by several manufacturers including Elmjet and Scitex (see also U.S. Pat. No. 3,373,437 by Sweet et al) Piezoelectric ink jet printers are also one form of commonly utilized ink jet printing device. Piezoelectric systems are disclosed by Kyser et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 3,946,398 (1970) which utilizes a diaphragm mode of operation, by Zolten in U.S. Pat. No. 3,683,212 (1970) which discloses a squeeze mode of operation of a piezoelectric crystal, Stemme in U.S. Pat. No. 3,747,120 (1972) which discloses a bend mode of piezoelectric operation, Howkins in U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,601 which discloses a piezoelectric push mode actuation of the ink jet stream and Fischbeck in U.S. Pat. No. 4,584,590 which discloses a shear mode type of piezoelectric transducer element.
Recently, thermal ink jet printing has become an extremely popular form of ink jet printing. The ink jet printing techniques include those disclosed by Endo et al in GB 2007162 (1979) and Vaught et al in U.S. Pat. No. 4,490,728. Both the aforementioned references disclose ink jet printing techniques that rely upon the activation of an electrothermal actuator which results in the creation of a bubble in a constricted space, such as a nozzle, which thereby causes the ejection of ink from an aperture connected to the confined space onto a relevant print media. Printing devices utilizing the electro-thermal actuator are manufactured by manufacturers such as Canon and Hewlett Packard.
As can be seen from the foregoing, many different types of printing technologies are available. Ideally, a printing technology should have a number of desirable attributes. These include inexpensive construction and operation, high speed operation, safe and continuous long term operation etc. Each technology may have its own advantages and disadvantages in the areas of cost, speed, quality, reliability, power usage, simplicity of construction and operation, durability and consumables.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an alternative form of inkjet printing utilizing nozzles which include a rotary impeller mechanism to eject ink drops.
In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention an ink ejection nozzle arrangement is presented comprising an ink chamber having an ink ejection port, a pivotally mounted paddle wheel with a first plurality of radial paddle wheel vanes and a second plurality of fixed paddle chambers each of which has a corresponding one of the pivotally mounted paddle wheel vanes defining a surface of the paddle chamber such that upon rotation of the paddle wheel, ink within the paddle chambers is pressurized resulting in the ejection of ink through the ejection port. Further, the paddle chambers can include a side wall having a radial component relative to the pivotally mounted paddle wheel. Preferably, the ink ejection port is located above the pivot point of the paddle wheel. The radial components of the paddle chamber""s side walls are located substantially on the circumference of the pivotally mounted paddle wheel. Advantageously, the rotation of the paddle wheel is controlled by a thermal actuator. The thermal actuator comprises an internal electrically resistive element and an external jacket around the resistive element, made of a material having a high coefficient of thermal expansion relative to the embedded resistive element. Further, the resistive element can be of a substantially serpentine form, and preferably, the outer jacket comprises substantially polytetrafluoroethylene. The thermal actuator can undergo circumferential expansion relative to the pivotally mounted paddle wheel.
In accordance with a second aspect of the present invention, a method is provided to eject ink from an ink jet nozzle interconnected to the ink chamber. The method comprises construction of a series of paddle chambers within the ink chamber, each of which has at least one moveable wall connected to a central pivoting portion activated by an activation means. After substantially filling the ink chamber with ink, utilisation of the activation means connected to the moveable walls to reduce the volume in the paddle chambers results in an increased ink pressure within the chambers and consequential ejection of ink from the ink jet nozzle.